Inspirational Quote: “So what do we do for a living? We try to ask the right questions. We have learned that everything else might be a whimsical trap. Why not explore the limits of contemporary art beyond the mere functionality, as an excuse for radical, experimental thinking? We are only portions of dreams. We yield to chaos, we might even fall too soon. We thought we were many, but we are always too few. What is to spare us from decadence, what can we save for the generations to come? Only our esquizofrenic lust for change, for opened ended roundabouts.” (Raising Frankenstien: Curatorial Education and Its Disontents – Fabricated Spaces, Explosive Discourses – p. 65) Biographical Information: Lourdes Morales mainly works in the Mexico City based art collective, Laboratorio Curatorial 060, a multidisciplinary collective focused on expanding the ways of thinking that surround contemporary art. The collective started in 2003 and has been working on different projects since then. Employment: Lourdes has worked with Laboratorio Curatorial 060 since 2003. In 2007 the collective won the Best Art Practices award from the Italian Culture Department of the Provincia Autonoma di Bolzano for their Fronetera project. The collective’s work has been published in major outlets of Mexican media, Art Press in the United States, ART in Germany, Exibart in Italy, Sarai in India, Exit in Spain, and other media outlets. Selected Exhibitions: 1. Preserving The Void / Documenta XII / June 2007Preserving the Void is a project by Laboratorio Curatorial 060 that attempts to investigate and deal with the existence of strange objects in everyday settings. The collective explores how one might be able to understand the idea of strangeness without adjusting the understanding of any particular strange object with the motive of more easily fitting it into a personal understanding or perspective of life. The group’s untraditional artist statement creates a narrative which shifts the conversation from strangeness in objects to groups of people, thus opening up a conversation about socio political subject matters such as migration and cultural diversity. Artist Statement: “We received “the thing” sometime last year. We were amazed by its size. We walked around it, turned it over, gazed at it in despair. What to do with it? We could just sell it in a flea market and pass the problem over to a candid buyer. But then the lack of sense associated with its formlessness, with its functionlessness, would be disseminated without a frame that would endow it with a meaning. After all, we cannot just reduce “the thing” to something “known” by finding its resemblances, by binding it to the familiar. That would be like turning the Unheimlich to the Heimlich, wouldn’t it? How to keep our own amazement as a foundation for further possibilities? How to fuse creativity to the unknown? How to shatter “cultural meaning” altogether while avoiding the permanent hunger for the difference with which the cultural industry deglutes everything that comes close to it? How to bring this thing alive without its integration to our own comfortable, petty lives? How to let it really affect our everyday activities, and not just adjust it to our cognitive structure? How to come to terms with the void that it has and that it represents?”2. Midas Touch / ARCO Fair, Madrid, Spain / February 2005Midas touch is a curatorial project by Laboratorio Curatorial 060 that addresses issues of the commodity as it has been reinserted into art-making processes of our time. Over a period of time the group collected an array of ‘unimportant’ objects belonging to well known Mexican or Mexico-based artists, without their knowledge, sewed these objects into the inside of a white laboratory coat, and secretly offered this object to international buyers. 3. The Agreement / MASS MoCA, “The Workers” / 2011

The Agreement is a project by Laboratorio 060 in collaboration with York Chang. This collaboration takes form through this simple, powerful statement, “A contract is only as strong as your ability to enforce it if your employer violates it.” 4. Traffic / Perriferico Sur, Barranca del Muerto and Altavista. Mexico City. / November 21, 2004

Traffic by Laboratorio Curatorial 060 is a work of curatorial action in which 30 people physically interrupted traffic by slowly walking through the inside of Periferico, Mexico City’s main freeway, during it’s busiest hour for 47 minutes. In this exhibition, instead of attempting to sell their products to stuck drivers as usual, street vendors walked the street with signs representative of political discourses and photographs by artists Marco Antonio Cruz and Ernesto Ramirez; displaying a disconnect and play within a national identity. This piece was exhibited in Espace d’Art Yvonamor Palix in Mexico City in November of 2004 to January 2005. Further Reading: - Raising Frankenstein: Curatorial Education and Its Discontents, edited by Kitty Scott - La pausa entre el centro y la periferia: una apuesta por la accion, by Lourdes Morales - LABORATORIO 060, by Helena Chavez MacGregor - The Pablo Helguera Manual of Contemporary Art Style, by Pablo Helguera Major Contributions to the field of Curatorial Practice: Through different curatorial projects and work with her collective, Morales’ work attempts to re-imagine and create new networks of relationships that can exist within the structures of our world, while also operating on a very different conceptual level than other preexisting cultural institutions. The work functions as a basis for dialogue, a critique of culture, a place of experimentation and questioning of future social possibilities, and most importantly, an emphasizing of our interconnectivity; “bypassing borders and cultural barriers.” Her work uses the field of curatorial practice as both a socially engaged art practice that attempts to function as more than just a symbolic, metaphoric gesture. Her work unites disciplines and emphasizes core ideas of collaboration and communal work. I feel these ideals are essential to the success of any socially engaged curatorial work, which does not intend to stray into a practice of cultural imperialism that many cultural institutions often ultimately take on. Tags: #borders #mexico city #curatorial collective #curatorial action #commodity #socio political Works Cited:

WHAT ARE CURATOR CARDS?

These Curator Cards began in Maryland Institute College of Art's inaugural Curatorial Practice MFA as a project for Interdisciplinary Approaches to Curatorial Practice (IACP) taught by Marcus Civin. This class focuses on revealing the history of curatorial practice by analyzing influential curators and exhibitions. The curator cards continue...

Together, a mix of students choose curators that spark their interest and create Curator Cards based on their research.

Please note that all of this information is strictly for educational purposes. If there are any additions, comments or concerns please contact us.